Guo Chen

Guo Chen
  • Associate Professor
  • Human Geography and Nature-Society, Urbanization and Environment, Poverty and Inequality, Social and Environmental Justice, Urban Resilience
  • Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences
  • ESPP, Asian Studies, APA Studies, GenCen, Global Urban Studies

WEBSITE

https://people.geo.msu.edu/guochen

BIOGRAPHY

Guo Chen, Ph.D. (she/her), is an Associate Professor in Geography and Global Urban Studies, an affiliate with the Environmental Science and Policy Program, the Asian Studies Center, and the Gender in a Global Context Center (GenCen), and a core faculty member of the Asian Pacific American Studies Program at Michigan State University (MSU). She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the Pennsylvania State University, and a M.S. degree and a B.S. degree in Geography and Regional Planning from Nanjing University. She was a Wilson Center Fellow (2017–18). At MSU, she was a Lilly Fellow (2022–2023) and received many college- and university-wide awards and distinctions, including a College of Social Science – Integrative Studies in Social Science Teaching Excellence Award, an Outstanding Women of Color Award-Trailblazer Award (2024) from WOCC, and a GenCen Inspiration Award–Professional Achievement Award (2023), a prestigious recognition of an individual each year whose unique impactful passion, inclusive action, and influence make outstanding contributions to gender equity and social justice, positively influencing the culture of Michigan State University. Guo is the inaugural Editor of Human Geography/Nature and Society as a Co-Editor-in-Chief for The Professional Geographer, a journal of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). She currently serves as a university-elected At-Large Member on MSU’s Steering Committee (2024–26).

Editor of two books and four special issues, Guo is a broadly trained geographer with interests in urban, economic, critical, and environmental areas, passionate teacher-scholar, public intellectual, and author/coauthor of 50 publications on poverty, inequality, housing, migrants, urbanization, land use, governance, waste geographies, and social and environmental justice, including articles appearing in PLoS ONE, Scientific Reports, The Professional Geographer, Environment and Planning A, Urban Geography, Urban Studies, Cities, Habitat International, Environmental Management, and many other journals. She is guest editor of Special Issue titled “Global social and environmental justice: Intersections and dialogues” for Sustainability and is the initiator and editor of Focus Issues for The Professional Geographer titled “Hidden Geographies II: Cities” (forthcoming) and “Hidden Geographies: Migration, Intersectionality, and Social Justice in a Global Contemporaneous Space” (issue 1 of 2023) featuring research articles on race, gender, ethnicity, class, nationality, citizenship, and social and environmental justice, by ten diverse scholars around the world. She is also coeditor of Locating Right to the City in the Global South (Routledge 2013) and “Interrogating unequal rights to the Chinese city” (Environment and Planning A Special Issue 2012 based on her initiated sessions at the AAG meeting). She is the lead editor of a large, edited book on How to Foster DEI and Justice in Geography (E Elgar 2024) and writes about Asian & Asian American Geographies. Her research (including collaborative research) has been funded by the National Geographic Society, the Wilson Center, the National Science Foundation, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Mellon Foundation-funded Urban China Research Network, and a wide array of competitive awards from MSU: IRGP New Faculty Grant, CASID, Humanities and Arts Research Program (HARP), DFI, Honors College, Asian Studies Dr. Delia Koo Awards, etc. 

Dr. Chen served as secretary, vice-chair, and chair of the China Geography Specialty Group (CGSG) of the American Association of Geographers (AAG), 2012-2015, and received an Outstanding Service Award in 2020 from the Specialty Group. She also received the distinction to be selected as a candidate for election for National Councilor of the AAG in 2023. She is involved in AAG’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) subcommittees and its working group on Research Partnerships for Targeted Mentoring Networks. She has served on the editorial boards of The Professional Geographer and Journal of Urban Affairs and has served as an ad hoc reviewer for close to 50 academic journals and many programs. Her academic leadership also includes over a hundred organized sessions, invited talks, and conference presentations. Her public scholarship includes interviews, op-eds, and webinars.

Guo has promoted a creative pedagogy in all her undergraduate and graduate courses and has mentored many graduate and undergraduate students, numerous visiting scholars, and interns. Her countless elected and appointed leadership roles at MSU include serving as a College-Elected Faculty Senator representing the College of Social Science on the Faculty Senate, being an Elected Faculty Representative on the Asian Studies Advisory Council, being a President-Appointed faculty member and Elected Chair of the President’s Advisory Committee on Disability Issues, being a Student-Elected Faculty Mentor of the Supporting Women in Geography group, being a founding member of the Diversity Committee and Appointed Chair of the first standing DEI committee in her department, and serving on various committees for the Asian Pacific American Studies programs and community. She served on the Urban Environment Committee of ESPP (2017–2018).

AREA OF EXPERTISE

  • Human geography (urban and economic) and nature-society
  • Urbanization and environment
  • Poverty and inequality
  • Social and environmental justice
  • Waste geographies and informal recycling
  • Slums, housing rights, & migrants
  • Urban resilience
  • Land use, city-regions, & urban and regional governance
  • Mixed, quantitative, qualitative, & creative research methods
  • Global South, Asia-pacific, China, & emerging countries
  • Geography and DEIJ and Asian/Asian American geographie